e sharing the same cover. The sheriff is watching
the last of the braves as they desperately hasten out of range. At last
he moves and starts to rise from his prone position. But Seth's strong
hand checks him and pulls him down again.

"Not yet," he said.

"Why?"

But the sheriff yielded nevertheless. In spite of his fledgling twenty-two
years, Seth was an experienced Indian fighter, and Dan Somers knew it; no
one better. Seth's father and mother had paid the life penalty seventeen
years ago at the hands of the Cheyennes. It was jokingly said that Seth
was a white Indian. By which those who said it meant well but put it
badly. He certainly had remarkable native instincts.

"This heat is hellish!" Somers protested presently, as Seth remained
silent, gazing hard at a rather large bluff on the river bank, some three
hundred yards ahead. Then he added bitterly, "But it ain't no use. We're
too late. The fire's finished everything. Maybe we'll find their bodies. I
guess their scalps are elsewhere."

Seth turned. He began to move out of his cover in Indian fashion,
wriggling through the grass like some great lizard.

"I'll be back in a whiles," he said, as he went. "Stay right here."

He was back in a few minutes. No Indian could have been more silent in his
movements.

"Well?" questioned the sheriff.

Seth smiled in his own gradual manner. "We're going to draw 'em, I guess,"
he said. "Fill up."

And the two men recharged the magazines of their Winchesters.

Presently Seth pointed silently at the big bluff on the river bank. The
next moment he had fired into it, and his shot was followed at once by a
perfect hail of lead from the rest of the hidden white men. The object of
his recent going was demonstrated.

For nearly two minutes the fusilade continued, then Seth's words were
proved. There was a rush and scrambling and breaking of brush. Thirty
mounted braves dashed out of the hiding and charged the white men's cover.
It was only to face a decimating fire. Half the number were unhorsed, and
the riderless ponies fled in panic in the direction of those who had gone
before.

But while others headed these howling, painted fiends Seth's rifle
remained silent. He knew that this wild rush was part of a deliberate
plan, and he waited for the further development. It came. His gun leapt to
his shoulder as a horse and rider darted out of the brush. The man made
eastward, attempting escape under cover of his staunch warri